Why This Policy of Frustration?
Page 62
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A FEW days ago we dispatched the first examples of I—Ia batch of 100 reconditioned ex-W.D. vehicles to the docks for shipment to the Middle East. This particular consignment is only one of a number made in the past.
Many of the vehicles go to hard-currency areas, representing a tremendous supply of dollars for this country, and this is what we understand is required. The Government wants the dollars, whilst the local council wants industry for the South.
Each consignment has been completed, and the last is being carried out, in the face of many frustrations. Instead of co-operation, we find apathy, lack of interest end even actual hindrance, with the result that the work is being hampered on all sides. Let us study the history of this last consignment. Most of the vehicles were purchased in Germany from the the Ministry of Supply. They are shipped to Shoreham or Newhaven and then sent by rail to the nearest convenient point. Off-loading is a big task.
and it is essential to have ground adjacent to the siding. Such accommodation we found at Hove. but after enly a few months we were told to go because the residents had complained that the vehicles were " unsightly."
Previously, this was a weed-covered dumping ground for old prams and other rubbish! However, we adver tised in all the local newspapers for space where we could work, and eventually selected a site at Pyecombe, which is right away from the town, but we had not been there a month before we received marching orders because we "spoilt the amenities of the Downs."
What is the result of all this? We now employ over 200 local mechanics, but if we could find a suitable place where we could work " under one roof" the number could be raised to 500. Despite the talk of " No Unemployment in Brighton, we have a regular stream of qualified men seeking jobs. We are in need of them, but have not enough elbow room to employ any more. One of the most serious feattares of the position, however, is that completed vehicles have to be parked on open bombed sites, cinema parks, fields, in fact, anywhere, so that the work can continue on further vehicles in the workshops.
Now the convoys have to assemble at the Brighton Pylons from eight different parking points stretching from Shoreham to Rottingdean. The servicing of the vehicles to make them ready for the journey (this includes filling with petrol, water, oil, etc., and mount log batteries) will work out at about 200 man-hours. Ii they had been under one roof or at one parking place, the time could have been reduced to two man-hours.
In an endeavour to solve the problem we offered to take over the disused Shoreham Airport. Such a pro cedure would seem, on the surface, to satisfy every body—those who do not like our smell, our noise, the look of us working, the South would have its industry as we already have the orders, the unemployed mechanics would have their werk, and the country its dollars—but the result of our negotiations has been stalemate.
The Order book looks most healthy, but we feel that we have only tickled the fringe of the business that is available overseas. We are going all out for this, and so long as we are not hindered too greatly by all these 1328 petty restrictions and official obstructions, we see no reason why we should not develop a really important light industrial centre in the South.
F. CRADOCK.
Managing Director.
(For Premier Motors (Brighton), Ltd., and Premier Motors (Overseas), Ltd.) Brighton.
IS THE R.H.E. BEYOND THE LAW?
NAY article under the above heading published in your ivlissue dated February 3, has aroused some criticism, in that I have referred to Part 1 of the 1938 Road Haulage Wages Act, when this Part has been repealed since December 16, 1948, by the Wages Council Act, 1948.
As the Wages Council Act repeals only Section 1-3 of Part I of the Wages Act for the purpose of establishing Wages Councils to replace the old Wages Boards, and makes it clear that the workers to whom the new Act applies are essentially those as specified in Part I of the 1938 Act, there seemed to me to be no point in confusing the issue by bringing into the argument cross-references between. the 1948 Wages Council Act and the 1938 Road Haulage Wages Act.
In order to clarify this point, it may be as well to quote from the Wages Council Act, 1948.
Section I-(1) (a) provides for the establishment of a Road Haulage Wages Council . . . in relation to all workers of the descriptions specified in sub-section '(2) of this section and their employers.
Section I-(l) (b) gives effect to any R.H. Order made immediately prior to the passage of this Act, as though it had been made by the Road Haulage Wages Council.
Section 1-(1) (c) reads—" Part 1 of the Road Haulage Wages Act, 1938 . . . as relates to the Road Haulage Central Wages Board shall cease to have effect . . . (my italics).
Section 1-(2) The descriptions of workers referred to in paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) of this section are the descriptions of workers whose remuneration was the subject of an order under section 3 of the Road Haulage Wages Act 1938, irntnediately before the passing of this Act, and any other descriptions of workers whose remuneration could, under the law then in force, have been the subject of such an order.
Workers whose remuneration was the subject of such an order were those specified in Part 1 of the 1938 Road Haulage Wages Act. I trust that, with this clarification, ITly critics will appreciate that the point at issue was whether drivers of Aor B-licensed vehicles, as specified in the 1938 Act and since included_ in the 1948 Wages Council Act, were to lose the protection of such legislation merely because they were no longer operating under such licences.
London, E.C.4. ERIC CANT.